Belgium’s largest telecoms operator, is using Cyber-Ark’s Privileged Identity Management Suite to manage accounts in Belgacom’s ICT data centre as well as recording and auditing activities for compliance purposes.

Using Cyber-Ark, Belgacom is able to provide security and accountability, demonstrating to its customers that it is effectively managing their servers and guarding sensitive accounts.

Belgacom has started the process of developing an Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) environment, along with Platform as a Service (PaaS) and Software as a Service (SaaS). This move to cloud hosting comes with certain concerns over security, but using Cyber-Ark means that Belgacom can ensure customers’ accounts are managed both now and in the future.

Cyber-Ark's Enterprise Password Vault (EPV), part of the PIM Suite, enables organisations to enforce an enterprise policy to protect the most critical systems, managing the entire lifecycle of shared and privileged accounts across data centres. Privileged, administrative accounts – the most powerful in an organisation – are often neglected, rarely changed and can be impossible to track the ‘who, what, when and why’. If mis-managed, privileged accounts can pose a considerable risk in terms of administrative overhead, reduced productivity, audit failure and insider threat.

"Cloud service providers face the challenge of hosting multiple customers in a heterogeneous environment, while protecting these managed systems,” said Gil Fromovitch, Channel Director Western Europe & Africa, Cyber-Ark Software Ltd. “Cyber-Ark Privileged Identity Management Suite secures privileged access to these systems, creating accountability and mainly, building the trust that their customers’ systems and data are being well secured. Belgacom was able to rapidly implement Cyber-Ark's Enterprise Password Vault & Privileged Session Manager to reap operational efficiencies and meet regulatory compliance requirements."

In addition to EPV, Belgacom has also deployed Cyber-Ark’s Privileged Session Manager (PSM) to ensure full visibility of not only who is accessing what system, but monitoring what they are doing with their privileged access. A multitude of devices are accessed daily by internal IT personnel, outsourced administrators and at times by remote third party vendors. To protect these systems and the data that resides within them, all session operations can be recorded in a DVR-style playback format, helping to comply with the growing security and regulatory demand for traceability and accountability.

Privileged Session Manager also helps to streamline other challenges including the control and management around who is entitled to access the sensitive devices and networks, how to secure and manage the underlying privileged credentials required to initiate these sessions, as well as the ability to perform audit reports of all activities within these privileged sessions. All of this is provided as a transparent solution that requires minimal user behaviour changes, and no changes to the network architecture or existing IT infrastructure thus providing easier use and implementation.

“The ability to demonstrate better accountability to our customers is of paramount importance to Belgacom,” said Dries Robberechts, Senior Technical Consultant, Belgacom. “Cyber-Ark’s Privileged Identity Management means that we can effectively show that we’re protecting our customers’ sensitive accounts, while improving efficiency. Crucially, Cyber-Ark enables us to plan for future compliance requirements and seamlessly migrate to the cloud without any security concerns.”

In addition to the deployment of the Cyber-Ark solution in support of its own cloud-services, Belgacom offers the Cyber-Ark solutions as part of its comprehensive security portfolio to its customers, thereby responding to the growing need to secure and audit administrative accounts within their diverse ICT systems.